Re: Bye SiD

In message <d752d0e9-bdca-46da-b4b7-d5d14ad81478@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, mundanedave <mundanedave@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Below is the response I got from HQ regarding SiD:

'Thanks for your email.

The decision to remove SID is in response to the issues now outlined
on the entry page. There was sufficient enough concern over the
accuracy of details on SID and the fact that our Members' details were
being harvested and used without their consent for us to review the
situation and act accordingly.

Then they have singularly failed to achieve what they set out to do and worse still they have exacerbated the situation by their actions.

If some of the details are inaccurate we need to send a reminder out that SID needs to be checked and up dated or better still replace it. On SID people create their own entries and are responsible for keeping their entry up to date and each County is supposed to have a local administrator who can make amendments. We have always offered to remove an entry if we were notified that someone was no longer in Scouting but have no communication from H.Q. about any other changes. By putting a notice on the entry page that SID is dead people will assume that there is no point in updating anything and before long the data really will become out of date.

Secondly if the concern is SPAM from harvesting addresses then that has not been solved at all by doing this as by leaving the database in situ and only changing the front page they have done nothing to change the situation. If addresses were being harvested then they will continue to be harvested as scrapers will not care what the front page says.

We are looking at ways of making details available for Members,
through perhaps a username and password process, to enable the sharing
of email addresses and to aid communication. We are in the initial
stages of this at present and Members will be made aware when any such
functionality on the Membership Services System becomes available.

We have been in discussion about that development since 2004, the work has been planned, the budget approved and the project has been scheduled many times. Each time nothing has happened.

In September 2006 I was told it was due to be completed March 2007, in March I was told it would be done straight after the Jamboree. After the Jamboree I was told that it would be about another 12 months. We are now at the end of January 2008 and are still being told it is about twelve months away.

If they really are concerned about SID and committed to a replacement they it wouldn't take long to replace it by incorporating it into Membership Services. That should be done now, it isn't rocket science and wouldn't take a competent person long to implement.

My thought was - why not uses encryption etc etc to prevent
harvesting... and why not go back to those (volunteers) who administer
the list to see if they can offer solutions...

That probably wouldn't work, it may surprise some but the scapers are more intelligent than the average user. There are other ways round the problem by possibly using image links but they have to be simple enough solutions for everyone to be able to use them.

Still the deed is done, and already I have been getting people across
the District and County contacting me asking how they get contact
details for people in other counties who are not the DC or County
Secretary.

Same here, the word that SID is dead is spreading and I am being asked what is replacing it and when.

I wait now with interst to see what, if anything, comes from the
'initial stages' of the improvments to the Membership Services System.

Don't hold your breathe!

And, who knows, if they don't remove the SiD database from the server,
we can always keep it upto date as a useful resource ourselves... I
for one will continue to let peolpe have the direct address for the
Counties and Districts they are looking for.

Thank you SiD, may you survive in the ether for ever.

--
Paul Harris
.

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